What Happens When Scientists Get Creative And Make Up Funny Animal Names

Most of the time, when scientists come up with the names of animals, they include in the name some information about the animal’s looks or behavior or another thing characteristic of them. But sometimes scientists let their imaginations run wild and come up with funny sounding names or names that have nothing to do with reality.

For example, let’s have a look at guinea pigs. These cute little fellas come from the same group as beavers, squirrels, and hamsters. Natives of South America, they have nothing to do with either the country of Guinea or pigs, and yet, this is the name they are known by in daily life. In some countries they are called “sea pigs,” which makes even less sense.

But if you thought this was a funny animal name, wait until you meet the fried egg jellyfish and tasselled wobbegong. While the first sounds like the person in charge of naming it was hungry at the time, the second one could have easily come down from the pages of a Lewis Carroll story. To be fair to the scientists though, very often those weird names are very much justified by nature’s creativity. What else are you supposed to call a screaming hairy armadillo if it’s… well, hairy, and also screams when you touch it.

Another thing you will often find scientists doing is creating long animal names. The longest one presently recorded belongs to the soldier fly. Its scientific Latin name, although only two words long, consists of 42 letters.

In this article we have collected animals with funny names. What other funny animal names have you heard that made you chuckle?

This post may include affiliate links.

Blue-Footed Booby

Blue-Footed Booby standing on the shore

51points

What Happens When Scientists Get Creative And Make Up Funny Animal Names

Blue-Footed Booby

Satanic Leaf-Tailed Gecko

Screaming Hairy Armadillo

Pink Fairy Armadillo

Fried Egg Jellyfish

Axolotl

Chinstrap Penguin

Christmas Tree Worm

Noisy Miner

Dik-Dik

Deer Mouse

Hummingbird Hawk-Moth

Spangled Cotinga

Mountain Chicken Frog

Tufted Titmouse

Willie Wagtail

Caracal Caracal

Frilled-Necked Lizard

Red-Cheeked Cordon-Bleu

Humuhumunukunukuāpuaʻa

Binturong

Tasmanian Devil

Shoebill

Thumbelina Horse

Pleasing Fungus Beetle

Boops Boops

Aye-Aye

Leafy Seadragon

Gorilla Gorilla Gorilla

Bubo Bubo

Red-Footed Booby

Smew

Fossa

Kakapo

Crex Crex

Horned Screamer

Horned Toad (Phrynosoma Cornutum)

Red Panda

Chocolate Chip Sea Star (Protoreaster Nodosus)

Bear Paw Clam

Dickcissel

Lumpsucker

Gang-Gang Cockatoo

Slow Loris

Glaucus Atlanticus

Pocket Gopher

Chicken Turtle

Tomato Frog

Whip-Poor-Will

Hawaiian Monk Seal

Maned Wolf

Euro Kangaroo

Warty Pig

Monarch Butterfly

European Penduline Tit

Common Loon

Patagonian Mara

Long-Nosed Monkey

Water Rat

Tawny Crazy Ant

Babirusa

Antechinus

Howler Monkey

Spectacled Bear (Tremarctos Ornatus)

Fruit Bat

Razor Clam

Yellow-Bellied Marmot

Colugo (Dermoptère)

Plains-Wanderer

Olm

Tasmanian Pademelon

Green Monkey

Cricetus Cricetus

Pacarana

Mulgara

Black-Footed Ferret

Italian Three-Toed Skink (Chalcides Chalcides)

Orange Spider Conch

Pied Shag